State information may include a plurality of pieces of information relating to the status of an aerial vehicle. State information may include flight crew avionics input, flight control surface deflection, engine parameters (RPM, EGT), ambient cockpit voice communications, radio frequency communications and additional avionics parameters.
Traditional commercial air transport category aircraft may employ a flight data recorder mounted within the aerial vehicle to record such state information. These traditional data recorders inherently possess limitations in certain situations. Should an aerial vehicle be lost at sea, the traditional data recorders may remain unrecoverable at the bottom of the ocean for periods of time after immersion. Limited battery life in addition to salt water immersion may limit the effectiveness of traditional data recorders.
Flight data recorders and cockpit voice recorders mounted onboard air transport category aircraft may also record and store various parameters associated with the command and operation of the aircraft. However, there is no similar data recorder device available to a Remotely Piloted Vehicle (RPV) for storage of state and command information. Particularly due to the size and weight requirements of most RPVs, limited or no onboard space and weight is available to install a device capable of recording and storage of state information associated with the RPV.
Traditional Flight Operations Quality Assurance (FOQA) and Maintenance Operations Quality Assurance (MOQA) data may be extracted from traditional flight data recorders for follow on analysis and use to determine 1) operational trend data for training purposes and 2) maintenance trend data for pre-failure preventative maintenance. This cumbersome extraction requires a physical connection for maintenance personnel to board the aerial vehicle, download the FOQA/MOQA data to a portable drive and physically transfer the FOQA/MOQA data from the aerial vehicle for follow on analysis.
Further, in the event of a catastrophic loss of an aircraft, forces experienced during the loss events may cause the flight data recorder as well as the cockpit voice recorder to become damaged beyond repair and some or all of the recorded data may be lost. This damage may leave accident investigation teams without usable data from which they may reconstruct events prior to such a catastrophic loss.
The miniature size and complexity of the avionics systems for RPVs avionics systems may not allow traditional onboard recording of state data and command data usable for RPV safety assurance, accident investigation and health and maintenance architectures. A need exists for collection of state and command information necessary for safety analysis, pilot training, currency, etc. Further, a need remains for a solution to this critical gap in remote recordation and storage of command and control as well as aircraft state information related to manned and unmanned aerial vehicles.